Brown Santa & Happy Holidays!

Hope everyone is enjoying the festive season with friends and family. Also extending wishes from the skinny, brown Indian Santa in front of a Domino's (a legitimate sit-down restaurant in India) at a mall in Mumbai. He was quite enjoying being photographed.

Sketchiness of cabs in Mumbai

Back to due popular demand, below is a chart illustrating the sketchiness of cabs Mumbai by time of night. Note, I often get out of work around 3:30am.





I only wish I'd had the presence of mind to take pictures of some of these, but some favorites include
* "Stripper cab" : Glow in the dark leopard print seats and headlights that change colors
* "Hole-y cab" : Holes in the floor, literally, so you can see the streets of Mumbai in a whole new way
* "Go-kart cab": Max speed of 10 mph and requires a push start ~50% of the time

I could write a post each day on just the cabs of this city.

Morimoto restaurant in Mumbai!

I'm so excited to hear the Morimoto restaurant, 'Wasabi' (presented by the same people as Nobu 57 in New York) is finally open at the Taj in Mumbai. This is the same landmark hotel badly damaged during last year's terrorist attacks in Mumbai.



I was underwhelmed by the food here last time, especially for the price (~$100 a person, excl alcohol). Hoping the latest iteration is better.

Also, I think I need to sharpen my foodie credentials in Mumbai. I'm going to create a blog version of the Definitive Dining Guide to Mumbai (e.g. Sri's version of Le Guide Michelin for Mumbai). Soon you'll be hearing about the best places to eat in Mumbai even though most of you couldn't care less. Your own fault for reading this blog!

Angry? Stop eating

Most people outside of India probably don't realize this, but India is going through major political upheaval right now. Basically, the party in office has said it is open to/wants to split the large states into smaller states. (FYI, India ~1/3 size of US has about 25 states).

The most controversial decision is the potential split my family's home state (Andhra Pradesh). People on both sides of the decision have been protesting, shutting down cities, burning effigies etc. My family has warned me against coming to Hyderabad (center of all the action) for the holidays.

Interestingly, a hold-over from the time of the Indian independence movement, the most common way for major political figures to protest is to fast-until-death, which is also considered illegal as it is attempted suicide. Below is an article on the member of parliament from my grandmother's district being taken into protective custody:

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/hyderabad/lagdapati-under-custody-372

My present life trajectory

As you may have noticed, I've basically stopped blogging over the last several weeks (see exhibit A below):



Major reasons are that I haven't had time to blog...but more importantly, haven't even had time to make any pseudo-witty observations. Work has taken over my life.

The goal is to get that December # above, November. Baby steps people. Baby steps!

The Creamy Layer

No, I'm talking about Tiramisu. I briefly broached the topic of the rigid affirmative action system in India with quotas/reservations for certain castes, religious groups and women. Apparently, in response to criticisms that affirmative action inadvertently benefits the richest of the underrepresented minorities further; the Indian supreme court has come up with--I kid you not-- a "Creamy Layer" exception. Basically, if you're an underrepresented minority above certain income threshold, you are not eligible for benefits of quotas.

Read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creamy_layer

Should we set-up some yummy, creamy layers in the US?